


Reboot

by Emma_Wolf



Category: Continuum (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-04-23 09:02:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14329080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_Wolf/pseuds/Emma_Wolf
Summary: In 2077, Kiera sees that a beacon has been activated. The timeline has become unstable, and Kiera must return to the past to set it right.





	1. Coming Home Again

If someone had asked Kiera what she had expected an activated beacon to look like, she would have guessed it’d have flashing lights and maybe an alarm. Something loud and that couldn’t be missed. She didn’t expect it to spin and whistle like a child’s toy. It wasn’t a piercing sound. It was more like a faint humming. She didn’t notice it at first. It had been her cat’s meowing that finally drew her attention to it.

“What’s wrong, Ally?” she asked her calico as she pawed relentless at Kiera’s nightstand. Kiera opened the drawer out of curiosity and pulled out the spinning beacon. She hadn’t even realized that she had brought it with her to 2077. Maybe she’d placed it inadvertently in one of the pockets of her suit after activating it with Brad 60 years or 6 weeks ago.

“Or maybe it’s new,” Alec suggested when she’d shown it to him that afternoon at his home. “Maybe you’re still connected to 2015 somehow. Maybe someone’s trying to call you.”

“Like a cell phone that calls through time?”

Alec shrugged. “It wasn’t invented by me.”

Her first thought was Kellogg, but they were both certain he was back in prehistory and long dead in this timeline.

“Either answer it or get it out of here. That noise is giving me a migraine.”

Back in her timeline in 2077, she hadn’t known Alec Sadler all that well, so she was still used to him as a young man. Alec the Younger, she referred to him to herself. Alec the Elder could be a crotchety old man as likely to complain about his failing health as he was to design a world changing technological marvel. She wondered if he was like this in her original timeline or if this was just an inadvertent change she had made when she fixed his broken future.

Nervously, Kiera pressed a small button on the side of the beacon and set it down on the table in front of them. Alec breathed a sigh of relief when the whistling stopped. A second later, a holograph recording of Alec the Younger appeared before them.

“Kiera,” Alec the Younger said desperately, as though he had been waiting 60 years for her to pick up. “I know I’ve already asked a lot of you, but...” The image faded in and out, and static overtook his voice. “...timeline... remember... someone tried... need you... Carlos... It’s not from now... Jasmine don’t recognize it from... timeline... ripple... back to 2016.”

Her breath caught in her throat at her former partner’s name, but the message was too garbled to make any sense from it. What was Alec trying to warn her about? She turned to Alec the Elder. “Is there any way you can clean up the sound?”

Alec shrugged again. “Maybe. We’ll have to see if there’s a problem with the recording, the transmission, or the playback.”

Alec pressed a few buttons on the watch-like device at his sleeve, sending a message asking his son to join them in his study. A few minutes later, Jason appeared.

Kiera had done a double take when she'd first met this Jason. He was nothing like the Jason she knew, the son of Alec and Annie. Because, of course, he wasn’t that Jason. But Alec and Emily had named their son after “Uncle Jason,” who had died some forty years ago. This Jason was younger than the Jason she remembered, mentally sound, and just as smart as his half-brother. But he was as fierce as his mother and dyed his hair her same shade of red in her memory.

Alec handed the beacon to his son. “Jason, please take this to the lab. See if the sound and image can be cleaned up.”

Jason puzzled over the beacon. “What is it, Dad?” He looked at Kiera and comprehension dawned on him. “Is it something from...?”

“Thank you for your discretion in this matter, Jason,” Kiera said flatly.

“Always,” he said with a slight smile on his lips. “The lab is empty on the weekends. I’ll take it now.” He nodded to Kiera and left his father’s private study. Kiera watched him go through narrowed eyes.

Alec broke the spell of silence that fell on them after Jason had gone. “It hurts me that you don’t trust him.”

Kiera nearly laughed, but she managed to keep a straight face as she quickly concocted a story. “It’s not that. It’s that he’s not the Jason I know. Not at all. You’re different, but you’re still the same Alec. He’s a completely different person, of course.”

Alec grunted. “I guess it will take some getting used to. You got used to Emily, you can get used to her son.”

Kiera nodded. “I better go with him. Not because I don’t trust him,” she added hastily. “Maybe I can help him.”

Alec smiled. “I’ll go with you.”

“No, you stay. I wouldn’t want it to start going off again and inconvenience you with another migraine.”

She left Alec in his study and followed the long corridor out of the residential portion of the Sadtech building where Alec—never wanting to be far from his work—and Jason—who helped take care of his aging father—lived. She took the elevator down, activating the floor for the Sadtech labs with a keycard from her pocket, as Alec had decided to never invent citizenchips or use other types of implants. A few minutes later, she found Jason by himself connecting the beacon to one of the lab's many computers.

“You didn’t have to invent this scenario just so we could spend some time to spend alone together,” Jason said playfully when he saw her come in.

Kiera let herself smile. “He thinks I don’t trust you.”

Jason nodded. “He knows you’re hiding something, and he thinks it’s your dislike of me. He said you didn’t like my mother much in the beginning either.”

Kiera rolled her eyes and prepared herself to go on another “it’s not that” speech, frustrated that she had to _still_ defend her initial opinion of Emily, but Jason just reached for her hands and pulled her close to him. “I know, Kiera,” he said and kissed her softly. “I don’t want to keep things from my father, but I understand. We’ll tell him when you’re ready.”

Kiera nodded. “Thank you. For your understanding, and for this,” she said, nodding to the beacon. “Have you got anything?”

Jason quirked his lips. “You overestimate my intelligence if you think I got anywhere in the few minutes since I left the house. Maybe if I didn’t have a beautiful woman trying to distract me from my work.” He tugged on her hands again to bring her closer, but Kiera pulled away.

“Get to work, Jason. Call me if you’re able to get anywhere with it.”

He nodded. “You know, sometimes I think you’re just using me for my brain.”

“Now you’re the one overestimating your intelligence,” she teased.

***

It took Jason three days to piece together the message. He and his most trusted Sadtech employee Lucas Ingram worked together late at night after all the others had gone home and during the day secreted away in a little-used room in the labs.

“Shaboof,” Jason said when it finally came together.

“What’s this all about?” Lucas asked, not understanding the younger version of his boss that had appeared as the hologram.

Jason turned off the projection. “It’s probably nothing. This device is something Dad was experimenting with when he was younger. He only just now found it again. He’ll be happy to learn we made something of it.” He called Alec and Kiera and told them to meet him in Alec’s study right away.

“The problem was with all three,” he explained to them once they had settled. “The problems with the recording, obviously, I couldn’t do anything about. But the ones with the transmission and playback, they’re because the message was recorded using different technology than what we have here and now.”

Kiera nodded. “That’s because it’s from a different timeline. The beacon’s from Kellogg’s dark future that we changed.”

Jason shook his head. “I took that into account and reverse engineered equipment to help play the message. But the message is still incongruent with what we have now.”

Kiera furrowed her brow. “So what are you saying?”

“The message is coming from a different timeline. I’ll let him explain.” Jason pushed a button on the beacon and the image of Alec the Younger appeared again.

“Kiera,” he began, still sounding desperate. “I bet you never expected to see me again. I know I’ve already asked a lot of you, but” Alec’s voice crackled out. “...the timeline <<crackle>> reason to believe that more time travelers, new time travelers, have come <<crackle>> Remember that old riddle? If you could <<crackle>> and kill Hitler, would you? Well, we think someone tried. Not Hitler, I mean,” Alec rushed to explain. “Carlos found a weapon. It’s not from now. Brad and Jasmine don’t recognize it from their times either. We think the timeline diverged again and <<crackle>> unstable. The effects of the unstable timeline in 2016 will ripple out until they reach you. It will take time, but <<crackle>> and you’ll know what I’m saying is true. I’m not sending you back without your knowledge this time <<crackle>> asking you. Will you come back to 2016 to protect your timeline?”

Alec and Jason turned to Kiera hesitantly. She scoffed. “He’s got to be out of his mind.”

“So that’s a no?” Jason asked with a grin.

“It’s a hell no!”

Alec the Elder was still thoughtful. “Kiera, remember what happened when I left my timeline? You said the timeline became unstable due to the change. You described it as collapsing in on itself.”

Jason looked at the two of them blankly, but Kiera remembered a time back in the Freelancers’ headquarters when the world seemed to shake apart before she got in Catherine’s life raft to go back in time a week. “You think we’re at risk of that?”

Alec shrugged. “I don’t know why else I would have asked. I don't know if I would have asked you to save his world,” he said, gesturing to where the hologram of the younger version of himself had been. "But to save our own?" He shrugged again.

Kiera shook her head as though trying to clear a fog. “Kellogg,” she said finally.

Alec dismissed her thought. “He can’t have had anything to do with this.”

“That’s not what I mean," she said, hastily trying to explain. "After Maddy was killed, nothing became unstable. The timeline didn’t become unstable even though Kellogg was removed from the future.”

Alec shrugged. “Perhaps Maddy and her children weren’t as consequential as I was.” He tried not to sound conceited as he said it, but he had been, after all, the architect of the future, as Kellogg had put it. “And whatever is going on involves more than just a woman and her narcissistic grandson.”

She turned to Jason hoping that he would come up for a reason why they should dismiss the message from Alec the Younger. “What do you think?”

He looked down at his feet. “He wouldn’t ask unless it was important. You trust him,” he said bitterly.

Despite the betrayal and manipulation Alec had done to Kiera across timelines, Jason was right: Kiera trusted Alec. And Alec wouldn’t ask unless it was important. Nonetheless, Kiera stubbornly refused. “It’s not my job to play Freelancer and fix whatever mistakes someone thinks were made,” she spat out. Self-consciously, she rubbed the spots between her fingers where Catherine had marked her. She remembered being locked in the cage at the Freelancer’s headquarters. She didn’t know how long she had been there after Alec the Younger left the timeline. Enough time to formulate a failed escape plan with Garza. Not enough time to fall into despair. “Besides, I had warning then that the timeline was about to break apart. It stands to reason that we would now too. Just like he said, sooner or later, we’ll feel the effects.”

"I guess that means you don't have to decide anything now," Alec offered.

Relieved, Kiera nodded. And she continued to believe her words for another moment. That is, until the earth started to shiver and lightning streaked the sky. Windows rattled, and the building’s fire alarm went off.

“What was that?”

“An earthquake?”

Kiera cursed and shook her head. “No. It’s the world breaking apart.”

Jason scoffed. “I’m sure there is a more likely explanation.”

“You said yourself he wouldn’t have asked unless it were important,” Kiera yelled above the sound of the fire alarm.

A larger rumble shook them, knocking photos off walls and books off shelves. Kiera nearly lost her balance. She reached out to Jason to steady herself.

Jason caught her arm and looked into her eyes. “An aftershock,” he said, wishing he could stay in denial and with Kiera for just a little bit longer.

Kiera shook her head and turned to Alec. “Do you have the equipment to get me back?”

“Of course,” he said calmly. He typed a code into the watch on his wrist and held it over a desk drawer. The drawer popped open, and Alec pulled out what looked like eight slices of a bronze orange.

Kiera gasped when she saw it. “How? When? And why?” she sputtered.

“We made another. Uncle Jason and I.” Sadness tinged his voice as he remembered his first son. “After you left, Kiera. We feared it might be useful one day.”

She nodded in understanding. “The date?”

Jason cleared his throat. “The date was embedded in the message in the beacon. July 18, 2016.”

“And to power it?”

“Follow me,” Alec said, waving his hand. He didn’t lead them downstairs to the lab but rather up to the roof of the building.

“I thought... antimatter... power source.” Kiera struggled to be heard over the blaring alarm and claps of thunder, and her words came out as broken and garbled as the message of the beacon.

Alec shook his head. “I never learned how the others perfected time travel. I didn’t want to know and be tempted. So the devise, yes, but it can only be powered by natural antimatter because I never designed a power source and all others were destroyed.” Alec pointed up to the storm clouds generated by the timeline’s fracture. “The storm generated by the timeline fracturing is strong enough. There’s antimatter above these clouds, so a bolt of lightning will power it.”

Jason looked at his father skeptically. “Really, Dad? With your skill and ingenuity and ability to solve problems before people even know they have them, you’re trusting something as important as this to an idea you saw in _Back to the Future_?”

Alec looked slightly abashed and shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for the classics.” He assembled the ball and held it out to Kiera. “I wanted this to be only a last resort. It could only be used when the world’s about to break.”

“How will you get back?” Jason asked.

“I’ll find a way,” she said confidently. She took the ball from Alec and hugged him. “I’ll see you soon.”

Jason stood behind him, anxious for the goodbye that was coming. When Kiera approached him, she pulled his face close to hers and kissed him. “I’ll come back to you,” she said as she pulled away and held the ball up to the sky, waiting for lightning to strike. It did. It felt as though her whole body were frying. And falling. Down, down, down, until she landed with a thud on a hard floor.

When she next opened her eyes, she was staring at Jason. Not her Jason. The other one. Annie’s son. The one that was never born.

“I know you, blue eyes.”

“Jason,” she said in a disbelieving greeting. She stood up and gingerly stretched out her aching muscles. Despite the lightning and the fall, she didn't feel that badly. She gave thanks to the nanocells that had been injected in her body that healed her as long as she stayed scared or active. She brushed off her clothes and looked around. She had landed on the floor of Alec’s old lab. In the recesses of her mind, she remembered finding her own dead body on this floor. “Where’s Alec?”

“At the police station. I’ll take you there. What are you doing here?” He asked it conversationally, as though she was just coming from around the block and stopping in to visit a friend.

“He sent me a message.” Kiera handed him the beacon. “Using this.”

Jason nodded, but it didn’t look like he had any idea what she was talking about. She turned on her CMR and scanned him. Nope, his pulse, breathing, and blood pressure were normal. He wasn’t hiding anything.

He filled her in on the details of the past year on the way to the station. Alec was still working for the Vancouver Police Department, obviously. Emily had returned. Alec wanted to get married, but Emily wanted to wait. Carlos was good. He took up all sorts of new age hobbies. The things he had witnessed—the Traveler in particular—had caused him to believe in anything. Curtis was a buddy of his, and they went to mediation retreats together. Julian still helped out Mrs. Kagame with little Edouard. Even Garza was fitting in well. The two were on a first name basis, so she was Jasmine now. She was teaching krav maga nearby.

“And Brad?” Kiera asked.

Jason shrugged. “I haven’t seen him since you left.”

Kiera figured that was probably for the best. Before long, they were at the station.

“Kiera!” Alec the Younger was happy to see her and gave her a hug. But his brow was furrowed in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

Kiera scanned him. He wasn’t hiding anything either. “The beacon,” she said, holding it out for him. “You called for me.”

Alec took the beacon from her and examined it closely. He closed the blinds in his office and pushed the button to turn on the holograph. The three of them watched the message in silence. When it was finished, he ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head. “I didn’t send that, Kiera.”


	2. Hello Again

“You didn’t send this?” Kiera asked. His words were an impossibility.

“Well, ‘I didn’t send it yet,’ I suppose, is the more accurate statement.”

“But Jas...” she stopped herself, not wanting to reveal too much of Alec’s personal future to him. “One of your trusted associates, said that the date was embedded in the message. July 18, 2016.”

Alec nodded. “That’s today, but... I must have found a way to fake it.”

“So why am I here?”

“I wish I knew.”

Nervously, Jason tapped his fingers on his lips. He muttered nearly unintelligibly, repeating words he had heard in the beacon’s recorded message. Kiera and Alec watched him for a moment, hoping he would stumble on the answer. When he didn’t, they left Jason in his own world and turned to each other.

“Killing Hitler,” Alec finally said. “Why would he... I mean, I... mention that?”

Kiera looked out the window at the view of 2016 Vancouver. Alec had a nice set up at the VPD. Sure, it wasn’t as nice as what he had going at Piron, but for a kid in his early twenties, he was doing pretty well for himself. He had a great view over the water, but Kiera knew she was looking out the window to avoid looking at Alec while she answered his question. She dropped her gaze to her feet. “It’s something that Carlos and I talked about back when we thought Julian was Theseus, the founder of Liber8,” she admitted reluctantly.

“You mean when you almost killed him?”

She braved an apologetic glance at Alec. “I’m not proud of what I did.”

Jason stopped his ramblings and looked at them. “Don’t feel bad, Kiera. I tried to kill him too.”

“I was wrong, Alec,” Kiera said. “He changed. The world I just came from is proof of that. So I don’t think this is about Theseus or Julian, but I think it’s a clue.”

Jason snapped his fingers, making Kiera jump. He rushed over to Alec and shoved him away from his computer. “Today’s the day,” he said as he typed something into a search engine.

“What happens today?” Kiera asked.

Jason pulled up a website and tapped the screen eagerly. “The Republican National Convention in the US.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with...” Alec began.

Reading the headlines of the website, Kiera raised her eyebrows. “I think I would have remembered reading in a history book that a wannabe real estate mogul won the Republican nomination for president. In my timeline, he was only a footnote in the pages of history.” She shrugged, a little confused. "I'm surprised I remember him at all."

“Your original timeline or the one we sent you back to?” Alec asked for clarification.

“Both.”

“So maybe he’s the disturbance in the Force,” he joked. Kiera, as always, looked blank. “You need to watch more movies,” he said, exasperated.

She sniffed haughtily. “I would say you need to watch fewer, but it was an idea you had from a movie that got me back here.”

“Really?” he beamed.

Kiera nodded dismissively and tried to get back to the point quickly. “But what does this have to do with killing Hitler?” she asked.

In response, Jason made another quick search and pulled up a news site. “Someone tried to do it a month ago. Not Hitler, I mean. Him.”

“But every time a politician is assassinated, that doesn’t mean time travel is involved. No one thought someone traveled back in time to kill Pierre Laporte,” she argued.

“No,” Alec said calmly. “But not every politician is compared to Hitler.”

Kiera pointed to the screen with a look of shock on her face. “Wait, so people are comparing that orangutan lookalike to Hitler? I stayed in one of his hotels before. I mean, the decor was garish but since when is bad taste comparable to genocide?”

Alec pulled up a video of one of his rallies. "He's come a long way from mere bad taste."

Kiera glared at Alec. “I’m a CPS officer, a VPD officer, and a military servicewoman who served this country with honor. Or I will serve,” she amended. “I’m not an assassin. If killing Hitler’s what you wanted, you should have asked Garza.”

“No, Kiera,” Alec said quickly. “I wouldn’t ask that of you. I don’t believe in violence.”

Kiera looked unconvinced.

“Seriously,” he argued. “I’m not just saying that. Look, you tried to kill Julian, and you admit it was a mistake. You came to understand Liber8 even if you disagreed with their tactics. Hearts and minds, right?  Maybe that’s why you were sent back. Because you, and all of us, understand that more than anyone else. We changed Julian, didn’t we? And who knows? Maybe you were sent back to protect the orangutan so that he doesn’t get killed.”

“But in my timeline, he’s a nobody.”

Before they could get any further, Carlos burst into the room. His hair was longer, and eyes were misty as he hurried over to Kiera and hugged her warmly. “How is this possible, partner?” His voice cracked as he spoke.

“I don’t know, Inspector,” she said, her voice betraying her emotions as well. “Show him,” she said to Alec. “It’s easier than explaining.”

Alec repeated his denial of having sent the message and ignorance of any more time travelers currently in 2016. Jason repeated his theory about the assassination attempt.

Carlos looked at the news story about the assassination attempt that Jason had pulled up on the computer. “You think this joker was sent back in time and that broke the timeline?” Carlos asked.

Jason shrugged. “Do you guys have any other ideas?”

Carlos still wasn’t convinced. “I’d just think a time traveling assassin would be more competent. Not saying he should have succeeded, of course,” he added in a rush. “Whatever I think of the guy, violence is not the answer. Just that you’d think he’d have a better plan than to try to steal a cop’s gun. I mean, what if there _hadn’t_ been a cop standing there with his gun unlocked in its holster? Abort the mission?”

Kiera thought over the puzzle before them. “What if the cop was part of the plan?”

Carlos brushed it aside, offended by the suggestion that one of his brothers in blue would try to assassinate a political leader.

“But what if he was never a cop?” Kiera said, trying to soften her idea. “What if he was a time traveler too, posing as a cop?”

Carlos put on a comically quizzical face. “Wherever did you get that idea, Linda Williams?”

Kiera rolled her eyes. “Alec, do some digging. What can you find out about this officer?”

“On it.”

Carlos and Kiera argued about it more while Alec researched the cop, using traditional methods as well as hacking into government databases. He loved that this was his job. He got paid for breaking the law and being a snoop.

“Kiera, come on! The guy was mentally ill. You think this event destabilized the timeline?”

“Well, no. Obviously it didn’t. It happened a month ago, so your timeline would be deteriorating now if it did,” she said thoughtfully. “I think he just clued us in to the fact that the timeline became destabilized.”

“I don’t think I understand the distinction.”

“He’s the smoke, not the fire,” Jason said.

“But if he’s a time traveler...”

“Then he’s an incompetent one, just like you said, Carlos. But it lets us know there are time travelers here trying to change something. But whatever they are trying to change was meant to happen, and we have to stop them before they do real damage.”

“Found him!” Alec said triumphantly.

“Well?”

“The officer was taken into custody after the incident. The official record from the local police department said that he died three weeks ago in jail, but there’s no obituary or anything in any local papers. I can’t find any record of a burial or memorial service either.”

“So maybe his body hasn’t been released yet?”

“I thought that too, but you’ll love this part. I found a record from the morgue. Any guesses as to what happened to the body?”

Kiera and Carlos exchanged a glance. “Don’t tell me it was stolen,” Carlos said.

“Shaboof.”

“Would you stop it with that?” Kiera snapped. “Your son used to say it and it irritated me then too. Or will irritate me then.”

Jason looked alarmed. “Who, me?”

“No, his other son,” she said without thinking.

“I have another kid?”

“Can we stay focused here?” Kiera said. “So the email didn’t say outright the body was stolen, did it? What were the exact words?”

“The record revealed that the body had been collected by the officer’s superiors. It's a fairly enigmatic entry. And the fact that the record is shared by the police and the coroner's office suggests that it wasn’t the local police department who did the collecting, right? So I looked at his employment records, and he had only been with the force for a few weeks prior to his death. He was a special agent on loan from another agency. Any guesses as to which agency?”

Carlos looked blank. “What agency would have such incompetent assassins?”

Alec spun his computer around so they could see the record because they sure as hell wouldn’t believe him if he just said it. “Section Six.”

Carlos and Kiera stared at the computer screen in disbelief. Jason just looked confused. “What’s Section Six?”

“It’s nothing,” Alec said. “Or it’s me. It’s the cover I made for Kiera.”

“Ok, so Freelancers?” Kiera suggested. “They posed as Section Six before.”

Carlos shook his head. “Curtis told me they all disbanded after the Traveler returned to his timeline.”

Kiera frowned. Carlos’s friendship with Curtis was something that would take some getting used to. “Then we need to go check it out. It’s a bit out of our jurisdiction, but Alec, can you fake identities for us?”

He smiled. “Just like old times.”

“Great,” Kiera said brightly. “Once new identities are in place, and after we get some sleep, we can make our way down to... Where is it we’ll be headed?”

Alec wagged his eyebrows. “Vegas, baby!”

***

Alec slipped the key into the door of her old apartment.

“Here it is, just as you left it. I know you told me to sell it after you went back, but I couldn’t bring myself to. It felt... too final. Maybe a part of me was hoping you’d come back.”

She was glad for that. Alec’s sentimentality meant that she wouldn’t have to go shopping for a whole new wardrobe. But it did mean that she’d have to clean out the fridge of food that she’d left in it a year ago. She ran her finger over the banister checking for dust, but strangely, her finger came away clean.

“Someone’s been here,” she muttered.

Alec shook his head. “It wasn’t us,” he said nervously. “Should I call Carlos?”

“Not yet.” Kiera reached for a tool in her pocket and sprayed the room with her bio-enhancement mist. All the fingerprints became visible through her CMR. When she saw one she recognized, she swore and pulled out her weapon.

“What is it?”

“Brad.” She said his name as though it were a curse. “Come out where I can see you, Tonkin!” she yelled into the apartment.

He appeared at the top of the stairs. He was shirtless, but his weapon was drawn too. “Hello again, Kiera Cameron.”


	3. Starting Over Again

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Kiera asked, still pointing her weapon at Brad’s head.

“I might ask you the same question.”

“This is my house. Get out!”

“This is my timeline. Go back to Greg and Sam.”

Alec didn’t know what was more uncomfortable—the fact that he could be in the crossfire of a fight with deadly weapons or the fact that he was in the middle of a lover’s quarrel. He bounced around from one foot to the other until Kiera finally remembered he was there.

“You haven’t seen Brad, huh?”

“I haven’t!” Alec protested.

“Haven’t been back to my place this whole time? Christ, Alec, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was just a trick of yours to get us back together.”

Brad laughed. “Yeah, that’ll happen.”

“Maybe you both should put down your weapons and talk about this.”

“The last thing I want right now is couples counseling with the person who killed me. All I want to do right now is return the favor and have a hot bath.”

“Lucky for me you always were a lousy shot.”

Kiera didn’t bother saying anything in response. She just took aim and fired a shot about Brad’s right shoulder, dotting the “i” in “ceci” in the Magritte print behind him.

Alec threw his hands over his ears. “Jesus, Kiera! Brad! Both of you! Put your guns away!”

Brad’s face broke out in a wide grin and he laughed. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss you, Kiera.” He set down his weapon and held out his empty hands. “I’m gone, okay? Just give me a few minutes to pack up my things. But would you do me the courtesy of telling me why you came back? Satisfy my curiosity. I don’t think it was to see my pretty face.”

Slowly, Kiera put her weapon away and turned to Alec. “You can head home, Alec. I’ve got things under control here.”

Alec looked between the two of them warily. “Just give me a call if you need anything,” he said as he slipped out the door. “My computer is still listening for your CMR.”

“She’s a big girl. I’m sure she can handle me.” Brad taunted. His tongue darted out and licked his top lip suggestively. “Unless that’s what you’re worried about.”

Kiera ignored Brad’s suggestions and gave Alec a weak smile. “Don’t worry about me,” she said as she closed the door behind him. Then she walked up the stairs to the man who had been squatting in her house. “You’ve got five minutes,” she said as she slowly made her way up to him, “to get the hell out of my house.” She finished as she was standing right in front of him. She put her hands on her hips and tried to look as menacing as she could.

“Or what?” he asked with half a smile on his lips. She shoved him with open palms, but he caught her hands in his and held her hands down to his bare chest. “What happens if in five minutes, I’m still here?”

He pulled her closer, and for one second, Kiera faltered. She relaxed her hands against his strong muscles. Then she leaned slightly back and whipped her head forward, catching him in the nose with her forehead.

He released her hands and grabbed at his nose. Blood oozed from his fingers. “God! Kiera!” he shrieked.

She leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “Yes, I remember you saying that. I remember hearing you cry my name like a prayer.”

He reached for her face and pulled it towards his. He kissed her hard. “And I remember you giving me head, but not like that.”

She moved to slap him, but he caught her hand again. Kissing her fingertips, he asked “tell me, how’s Greg?”

She yanked her hand away, but the anger on her face softened and her eyes turned misty. She sank down on the floor and told Brad everything. About going home to the peaceful utopia of 2077 only to find another Kiera there. Greg and Sam were fine. It was the perfect family unit. Only there was no place for her.

“I didn’t belong,” she said. “I think that’s why I was drawn to Jason.”

Brad wondered what anyone saw in the middle aged crazy man who followed Alec around like a lost puppy. “Alec’s Jason?”

Kiera shook her head. “The one from 2077,” she said and began to explain.

Really, Alec the Elder was right. At first, Kiera didn’t trust the new Jason. There was a sense of wrongness about him. It was nothing personal. He was just living proof that the timeline had been altered. He shouldn’t be here. But then again, neither should she. She was reminded of that every time she saw Sam or Greg or her other self.

Alec and Jason tried to make sure she stayed away from the Cameron family. Who knew what the consequences would be if they saw her? But at the same time, they understood her need to see them and her curiosity. Ensuring that Greg and Sam were all right helped remind her that everything she had gone through had been worthwhile. So Alec and Jason tried to both give her space and occupy her time so that she wouldn’t dwell on what couldn’t be. Edouard and Julian helped with the later, and Kiera was the only one who thought it was a strange grouping. And so even her distractions served to remind her that she didn't belong.

That was how it came to be with the new Jason. She saw them as two misfits. She didn’t know how Jason viewed the two of them. She hadn’t asked. They hadn’t been together that long anyway, so she didn’t know why she found herself missing him as much as she did.

When she had finished with her story, Brad sat down next to her and put his arm around her gently. He hesitated, worried that she would get violent again, but after a moment, she relaxed and leaned towards him.

“I even hooked up with Kellogg in this time,” she confessed. “Before you came.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

“It was like that with us too,” she said finally. “Two misfits. It helped me feel less alone.”

He reached to her face to wipe a tear away. “And now?”

“Now you feel familiar.”

“Is that all?”

She shrugged. “What do you want me to say, Brad? You betrayed me. You killed Lucas. He’s fine now. In 2077, I mean. He works for Sadtech. He helped figure out the message from Alec that sent me here.”

“I should be grateful then.”

Kiera turned to face him and took his hands in hers. “No more secrets between us. No more lies. No more betrayal.”

He nodded, but she still knew she couldn't trust him.

“And this is only because I might need you for what happens next.”

He nodded again and brought her hands up to his lips. “I’ll follow you to the ends of time, Kiera Cameron.”

“It’s not that far. Only Vegas.” She told Brad the story of why she had returned and their theories. He listened, gasping when she described the end of the timeline and the bolt of lightning and furrowed his brows in bewilderment when she told him about Alec’s denial.

“But the beacon marks a point in time,” he protested.

“We know,” she said with a shrug. She had no answers, only guesswork and told him her thoughts.

“So you think there are more answers in Vegas?” he asked when she had finished.

“It’s where all the clues are pointing so far.”

“But the convention’s in Cleveland. If it has to do with that, shouldn’t we be there?”

“I can’t be everywhere at once. I can travel through time, not clone myself. We’ll investigate in Vegas, then move on.”

“Aren’t you worried the Cleveland trail would go cold if you wait so long?”

Kiera shrugged. Yes, she was worried, though she didn’t think things would happen so quickly. And if they did, she supposed there was always more time travel. Was there anything stopping her from traveling back a week or so to warn her past self to go to Cleveland? Maybe she could clone herself. It sounded exhausting.

Brad gave her a determined nod as though she had just asked him to make a grave promise. “Get Alec to make an ID for me. I’ll go to Cleveland and check things out. Get you started at least.”

If she had been in a better mood, she would have teased him by asking him why he didn’t want to head to Vegas with her to get hitched, but she didn’t feel like flirting. Instead, she saw the sense in his word and nodded. “Okay. I’ll tell Alec. If he isn’t already listening.”

“So it’s settled. I’ll call Jasmine, and we’ll both go.”

“Garza?” She asked. Kiera knew time wouldn’t have stopped just because she left, but she was still surprised that after only a short time everyone had seemingly become friends.

“You’re not jealous, are you?” He playfully bumped his leg against hers.

Kiera smiled sadly. “You wish.”

***

In the morning, they all set out for the airport—Kiera, Alec, Carlos, and Jason for Las Vegas and Jasmine and Brad for Cleveland. But Kiera was surprised to see Curtis at the airport with a ticket to Cleveland in his hand.

“I sensed turmoil with my Freelancer brothers in Cleveland,” he said enigmatically.

“Oh, shut up, Curtis,” Jasmine said. “I called him, all right?” She told the others. “I thought he would be useful if we ran into Freelancers.”

Kiera didn’t want to admit it, but it was a good idea. She didn’t know what they would be up against in Cleveland or Las Vegas. They parted ways without a real plan beyond trying to figure out what was going on and why Alec had activated, or would activate, the beacon as quickly as possible so they could all go back to their lives.


End file.
